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The other day, as I pulled out my trusty paper-and-pencil planner to write in an appointment, my fiancé laughed at me. “Why don’t you just put everything into your Blackberry?,” he asked.
I admit it. I’m stuck in my ways. I’ve never warmed up to the idea of tracking my schedule in my Blackberry with this teeny-tiny screen and even teenier buttons.

A new study finds that using a standard 1-inch needle to immunize obese adolescents against hepatitis B virus produced a much weaker effect than using a longer needle .
Frederik Joelving, Reuters Health
February 10, 2010
Our ever-expanding waistlines may have outgrown the doctor's needle, researchers say, in what could be another casualty of the obesity epidemic.

Julie Steenhuysen, Reuters
Medicare's move in 2005 to pay doctors to do bladder cancer surgery in their offices rather than in hospitals dramatically raised the number of procedures and overall health costs, U.S. researchers say.
The findings reflect the complexity of cutting health costs in the United States, showing how in some cases Medicare—the insurance program for the elderly and disabled—gives doctors incentives to provide too much care, the researchers say.

Reuters
U.S. health officials want manufacturers of CT machines and certain other medical imaging devices to incorporate new safeguards to help reduce patient exposure to radiation.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday it planned to issue requirements for manufacturers to use when designing their equipment and would hold a public meeting on the matter March 30-31.

Laura Buchholz, Reuters Health
Acupuncture may provide some temporary pain relief for people with fibromyalgia, but does not help with fatigue, sleep problems, or physical function, reveals a new research review. However, the results are too inconsistent to recommend acupuncture as a treatment fibromyalgia, the reviewers conclude.

Laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding surgery can effectively treat obesity in adolescents and seems to offer a better alternative than gastric bypass surgery, but further study is needed to determine whether it's better than nonsurgical options, a UT Southwestern Medical Center surgeon writes in an editorial in the Feb.

Considering purchasing new equipment for your OR related to surgical mobility? Patient transport and transfer products, as well as mobile surgical equipment such as carts, need to be safe and efficient for your surgical staff and patients. So, we asked manufacturers of surgical mobility equipment: what should OR staff members consider when purchasing this equipment? Here, Katie Kramer, Marketing Communication Manager at HoverTech International offers her advice related to surgical patient transfer equipment.

A Pennsylvania congressman and longtime friend of the late Rep. John Murtha says the congressman's large intestine was damaged during gallbladder surgery and an infection developed.
February 9, 2010
The sudden death Monday of Rep. John Murtha could be attributed to a surgical error, according to a source close to a congressman.

A new study finds that beer is a rich source of silicon which may help prevent osteoporosis
February 9, 2010
A new study suggests that beer is a significant source of dietary silicon, a key ingredient for increasing bone mineral density. Researchers from the Department of Food Science & Technology at the University of California, Davis studied commercial beer production to determine the relationship between beer production methods and the resulting silicon content, concluding that beer is a rich source of dietary silicon.

As Congress looks less likely to pass a health-care bill, hospital stocks have dropped as much as 20 percent from their January peaks.
February 9, 2010
As Congress looks less likely to pass a health-care bill, investors are steering clear of hospitals, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal reports.

A clinical study shows biologic graft reduced pain and discomfort while creating a repair as durable as synthetic mesh in treating inguinal hernias.
February 9, 2010
Results from a clinical study led by Luca Ansaloni, M.D., showed that Cook Medical’s Biodesign Inguinal Hernia Graft causes less postoperative pain and discomfort while creating a repair as durable as synthetic mesh when used in Lichtenstein’s hernioplasty procedures.

A common complication following surgery in elderly patients is postoperative delirium, a state of confusion that can lead to long-term health problems and cause some elderly patients to complain that they “never felt the same” again after an operation. But a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests that simply limiting the depth of sedation during procedures could safely cut the risk of postoperative delirium by 50 percent.

The new LUCEA™ LED Light series from MAQUET brings MAQUET surgical lights to the smaller venue of the ICU, cath lab, and clinic. Utilizing an effective combination of LEDs and special HECOL lenses, LUCEA produces a light with exceptional shadow dilution. Additional features include:
A unique, arrow-shaped light head design helps focus the light precisely at the desired site.

During my training, I took care of a man in his 50s with a devastating surgical complication: His abdominal incision had split open a week after an emergency operation.
Even after we had taken him back to the operating room, sewn the deepest layer of his abdominal wall closed and treated the infection that had caused his wound to fall apart in the first place, he still had a three-inch long crevice along the middle of his belly.

In October 2009, TrueVision Systems, Inc. released two new products in the realm of HD in the OR: TrueWare™ 7.0 3D Visualization and Guidance Platform and TrueZoom™ 3D Surgical Camera for its suite of microsurgery systems.
Together these new products provide an advanced 3D multi-window user interface and innovative 3D camera with new features to enhance productivity during surgery.